Jackson Madnick's blog

Pretty hard
to tell it's spring lately... 3” of snow on April 1 was a cruel April Fool’s joke, and cold weather has kept soil temperatures hovering just below the all-important 50-degree mark when grass seed germinates.

But the weather is turning now, its supposed to reach the 60’s this
coming weekend!

So, for all of you
who aren’t watching the Masters this weekend – my business partner tells me that’s a big
golf game? – its time to get out and do some lawn calisthenics!

There's a lot of lawn out there. NASA used its Earth Observatory (see map) to estimate over 40 million acres of lawn! That's 3x the amount of area sowed in corn. That's the largest irrigated crop in America. That's big!

We have been so busy helping people and organizations convert their existing lawns to Pearl's Premium low maintenance sustainable lawns that we don't always have time to do the new things we know we need to do.

So, the day before my extended family was coming to town was probably not the time to install a green roof. But when the inspiration strikes and the window opens...

Pearl's Premium was proud to participate in the leading sustainable construction event of the year. Sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, the same people who brought us L.E.E.D., GreenBuild is a clearinghouse for innovative ideas and products and an opportunity to network with all the critical constituencies as we further our mission to make the American lawn sustainable. Oh, and Chicago is a great town to spend a few days! Great restaurants, museums, parks and shopping, Chicago is also home to some of the most important developments in modern architecture.

I had the pleasure of meeting Austin Szelkowski the other day. Austin is better known as the "Freedom Skater." He is embarking later this week on a 3,000 mile skate (that's inline roller skates) across America.

Pearl's Premium was proud to sponsor this year's edition of the Dudley Pond 5k Fun Run. The event includes competitive runs for men and women, a kids run and a family walk. The Dudley Pond Association which sponsors the event was founded in 1968 and has taken a leadership role in addressing water quality issues, including invasive weeds and lawn chemical run-off that threaten lovely Dudley Pond (a favorite fishing hole for Babe Ruth back in the day).

It turns out there's a lot in common between automobiles and lawns. Like your typical car, the typical American lawn consumes a tremendous amount of resources and leaves a large carbon footprint behind. And, unfortunately, Americans can't get enough of either!

A different automobile - lawn paradigm was on display at my home in Wayland this week (photo at left). Marc Muller dropped by to learn how our Pearl's Premium sustainable grass seed mixes are cutting the carbon foot print of lawns with less mowing, less watering and no chemicals and to show off his own very cool car.

I read a great article the other day, Free-Range Landscaping, in the Wall Street Journal. Eco-entrepreneurs are using goat herds to maintain lawns without chemical weed killers or noisy, air-polluting mowers. The friendly critters really take to the job, devouring all manner of grass, weeds and even thorny brush.